


garden hearts

by andnowforyaya



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Coming of Age, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hale Family Feels, Mama Stilinski Feels, Mental Health Issues, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-13 02:25:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You are an unusually eloquent twelve-year-old, Mr. Stilinski," Dr. Hayes informed him. It was their second meeting; the first had been with Stiles' dad, after a round-robin of meetings while they searched for the right psychiatrist. All the other ones had been men. Stiles hadn't wanted his psychiatrist to be a man. Stiles thought about it and reasoned that this was probably on account of his Mom recently dying of cancer.</p><p>Stiles shrugged. He looked at the picture of some idyllic beach that was hung in a frame on the wall behind Dr. Hayes' head. "I read a lot in the hospital. No electronics allowed."</p><p>Or, Stiles meets Laura and Derek Hale in a psychiatrist's office, striking up an unusual friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There was something beautiful in seeing another person's sadness, Stiles thought. Something raw and intimate, because here was this vulnerability, this open wound, and there was nothing to cover it, now, and they were trusting everyone else not to make it worse. Sometimes it was made worse, though.

Usually unintentionally. He didn't think his own personal sadness was very beautiful. It festered.

"You are an unusually eloquent twelve-year-old, Mr. Stilinski," Dr. Hayes informed him. It was their second meeting; the first had been with Stiles' dad, after a round-robin of meetings while they searched for the right psychiatrist. All the other ones had been men. Stiles hadn't wanted his psychiatrist to be a man. Stiles thought about it and reasoned that this was probably on account of his Mom recently dying of cancer.

(Neighbors and teachers and the bag-lady at the grocery store kept telling him: "She's in a better place, now," but he couldn't help but feel like her favorite place in the world had been Sunday nights during the summer in an empty baseball lot with him and his Dad and sometimes his best friend Scott, eating sandwiches and throwing around a baseball, and no place would be better for her. She had missed the entirety of last summer, though, and had just missed getting to see another, again.)

Stiles shrugged. He looked at the picture of some idyllic beach that was hung in a frame on the wall behind Dr. Hayes' head. "I read a lot in the hospital. No electronics allowed."

"And you spent a lot of time in the hospital." Dr. Hayes nodded sagely. She was young-ish, probably, even though to Stiles anyone out of high school was considered Old. She had long dark hair she kept in a loose ponytail at her neck, and wore knee-length dresses and sandals to work.

"Yeah," Stiles said. "I seem to recall that."

There were no other pictures to look at in her office, except for the one that was facing her at her big wooden desk, so he looked out the window instead. His fingers were twitchy. He'd taken his Adderall but it was hard for it to really work if there was nothing for him to focus on, and the only thing that this office allowed him to focus on was his Mom's peaceful face right before she slipped away, just a few weeks ago. He didn't want that. He stood up and peaked out the window, where the curtains had been pulled to the side.

They were in an office complex on the second floor, and he could see his dad's patrol car on the ground level, in the parking space right next to the handicapped one. He imagined him taking a nap in the car.

"Let's not talk about hospitals," he said next, still looking out the window. Another car pulled up by the curb and a teenage boy climbed out of the passenger side. He looked up and saw Stiles at the window. Stiles waved. The boy scowled at him and ducked his head and came into the building. "Don't you get tired of talking about people's dead mothers?"

He turned to see her reaction, but there was none. She was still sitting at her desk, the picture of serenity. She tapped her pencil against her desk and hummed. She said, "No. It's kind of my job."

"So you like to talk about dead mothers?" Stiles asked her.

"No," she said again, eyes crinkling in amusement. "It's not always dead mothers. Sometimes it's fathers. Sometimes it's an accident that they survived. Sometimes it's a fear, rational or irrational."

"What's the weirdest irrational fear you've had to listen to?" Stiles went to sit back down, drawn in by her honesty. She seemed honest, anyway. She smelled like a library.

Dr. Hayes' dark eyes twinkled and she leaned forward over her desk like she was going to tell him a secret. "There was this patient I had who was afraid of bathroom tiles," she said.

"You lie," Stiles accused, narrowing his eyes.

"Some horrible childhood experience with them; I'm not at liberty to say." She leaned back, smug.

Stiles was hooked. He asked her about every irrational fear she's come across. Like, every one. And she told him. Maybe she was making some of them up, but Stiles didn't care. They passed their first official hour-long session without mentioning his mother once after the first five minutes, so he was satisfied.

There was a knock on the door at precisely 4:31pm, and Dr. Hayes went to go answer it. Stiles followed and looked over her shoulder and saw his dad waiting - well, sleeping was more descriptive, here, with an open magazine in his lap - in the line of chairs right outside her office, along with the teenage boy from the ground floor earlier, who was standing just outside the door. He scuffed his boot against the floor and scowled at it. He had the kind of face that could pull it off: angular and framed by dark hair.

Stiles tried to fix his face into a scowl, too, but thought that maybe his muscles just couldn't work that way. He felt like he was just frowning forcefully, nothing remotely angry about it.

"I'll see you next week, Stiles," Dr. Hayes said, ushering the other boy in. They bumped shoulders in the doorway, and the other boy made an aborted movement, like he was about to sock Stiles right in the jaw for the slight. Stiles flinched. He reminded him of Jackson, who was this kid at school who sometimes pushed Stiles into lockers or into the boys' bathroom stalls. Dr. Hayes said firmly, "Derek."

Derek blinked and visibly relaxed his shoulders. "Sorry," he said lowly, though it didn't sound sincere.

"Hey, no problem," Stiles returned graciously, shrugging. He stepped out of the doorway and Dr. Hayes closed the door on them. His dad was still asleep in the uncomfortable waiting chair. They weren't designed for long-term use. He nudged his dad with his foot, and smiled when he came to immediately and with a snort, the magazine sliding from his lap to the ground.

Stiles picked it up. He flipped through it. It was about gardening.

He put it back on the magazine table, not smiling anymore.

"You finished already?" his Dad asked, even though it was obvious. Stiles was standing right there, after all. His Dad scrubbed his face with his hands, warding off sleep. He'd been taking overnight shifts, lately, so that he could be home in time to make sure Stiles got to school. Stiles eyed the cooling paper cup of coffee on the seat of the chair next to him with some level of guilt.

"Yeah," Stiles said. "Are psychiatrists allowed to tell you about their other patients?"

His Dad frowned. "I don't think so," he answered, shaking his head slowly.

"Okay," Stiles said. "I think Dr. Hayes and I will need to have a talk, next time."

His Dad huffed a laugh. He fixed where his Deputy badge was pinned to his uniform shirt and slowly rose to his feet, giving an enormous stretch as he did so. "Just remember that she's supposed to be the doctor, son. Not you."

.

Mrs. Waters, of the older Waters who had seen their children grow up and move away, lived next door and kept coming over to bring them casseroles - butternut squash ones, ones stuffed full of kale, eggplant, potato, etc. Their fridge was stuffed full of them. "Mrs. Waters," Stiles told her politely one day when he opened the door to her on their doorstep. "You are feeding one grown man and one half-grown man, not a Roman legion under Caesar. But thank you for the sweet potato." He took the casserole dish from her.

She said, "I just worry about you and your father. He's hardly ever home."

It was the weekend. Stiles looked over his shoulder at where his dad was sleeping in a t-shirt and sweatpants on the couch, his limbs akimbo. "He's home when I'm home," he said. "Like 35% of the time."

Mrs. Waters gasped. "But supervision!" she protested, and Stiles wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that.

"We make do," he answered sagely, hoping that would be enough. He really didn't want to wake his Dad up. He didn't get enough sleep as it was. "Maybe the next time I'm alone in the house I can just go over to yours, and you can teach me how to make your lovely casseroles."

Mrs. Waters gasped again, but this time in delight. "Oh, yes. I would like that very much."

Stiles promised to do so, and closed the door.

He put the casserole in the freezer because there was no more space in the fridge. Sweet potato was his mom's favorite. He realized that he thought about her in the past tense, but it was just four weeks ago. One month ago his mother was alive, and now she wasn't - she wasn't anything anymore. She was just this hole in his chest and a collection of memories and smells and awful nicknames now, and no one would ever call him her Little Cabbage ever again because a) it was a horrible nickname, and b) only his Mom called him that.

He walked over to the couch and wormed his way under his Dad's sleep-heavy arm and lay down with his heart beating slowly against Stiles' back. And then he turned on the television and watched some Saturday morning cartoons.

As he watched he remembered the teenager in Dr. Hayes office after him, his strange multi-colored eyes and perpetual angry-face. There was a fire on his screen.

Then he remembered the actual fire.

It had happened before his mother slipped away from them, and that was why the memory of it was so hazy. The news of the fire had to filter through thoughts of his mother's impending, inevitable demise, and for weeks before the heart monitor went flat it was like Stiles lived behind plastic-wrap, the barrier keeping the harsh outside world from coming in but also slowly suffocating him. But now he remembered.

The Hale house had burned down, with the entire Hale family in it. Only three survivors, and they were Derek, and his sister Laura, and their uncle Peter.

Stiles turned off the television. It was getting really warm on the couch. He wriggled a bit, and then rolled off. His Dad muttered something like he knew what Stiles was about to do.

Technically, there was nothing wrong with what Stiles was about to do. It was just that his Dad hadn't been able to sleep in the bed he had shared with his wife since she passed, so they kept the door shut usually. He went in there for clothes, sometimes, but even those had begun to migrate into the living room. And, plus, he really only needed a couple of pairs of underwear, socks, and his uniform.

Stiles walked up the steps slowly in his bare feet, skipping over the second to last step at the top because that one creaked, and put his hand around the knob to the door to his parents' bedroom. It was cold. He turned the knob and thought it would be harder to open, but it was just like any other door in the house, and it whined a little at its hinges.

Stiles stepped inside. He thought how it really sucked for Derek, because Derek's house burned down. There were no doors that he could open if he wanted to feel closer to his dead family members.

The room was a mess, just as it had been four - six - eight weeks ago. His Dad was great with paperwork but he never really cleaned, not really, so there were clothes strewn about, his mom's vanity the only sane area in the room. He walked over to the vanity and sat down in the chair she had placed in front of it. It was a makeshift vanity, with a small mirror propped against the wall on top of a small desk, and on the desk were bottles and bottles of lotions and creams and toners, all laid out in neat rows.

She wasn't a vain person, his mother, but she had liked trying out different skin creams and face masks and the like. Once, she and Stiles had a spa day in the house, where she made him recline on the couch with an oatmeal mask on his face for ten minutes and continuously had to remind him not to eat the oatmeal, goodness, my dear.

He sat down in the chair and smiled at the face in the mirror. It didn't feel like his own. He noticed in the mirror that behind him, their closet door was open. He got up again and flicked the light on for the closet, and then he ran his fingers through her side of it.

Soft sweaters and blouses on hangers, a few dresses, a stack of neatly folded jeans on a shelf. As his fingers remembered the fabric, his mother's perfume strengthened in the air. Woodsy and a little spicy, warm. He brought the fabric of one of her dresses to his face and inhaled. The perfume was stronger there.

Suddenly the mom-shaped hole in his chest was overwhelmingly huge, and he imagined his future life without her, and it seemed empty, colorless. This perfume would fade. The fabric would rot, slowly. The vanity would be moved to the basement.

His Dad found him later, awakened by hunger, sitting in the closet cross-legged and crying into the same dress. He'd been crying for a while, so that his eyes were puffy and his voice clogged. "Oh, Stiles," his Dad said, and there was love, but his Dad also looked afraid. "Stiles," he said again, kneeling down in front of him to wrap his son in his arms.

Stiles crawled into his lap. His Dad rocked him back and forth like he was a little kid again. "I know," his Dad said into Stiles' hair. "I know."

.

He had a panic attack two and a half weeks prior, in the middle of science class. Scott had been sitting next to him. The teacher had to call someone up to escort Stiles out of the room because she couldn't allow any students to be responsible for someone else's life, and Stiles certainly felt like he was about to bite it.

These were his thoughts proceeding the attack:

Sugar snap peas are kind of tasty, he guessed. He could pick some up the next time they went grocery shopping and put some into the salads he was going to start making his Dad eat. Maybe he would try to re-gift the casseroles. Round or wrinkled? The Punnett Square demanded an answer. Tall or short? There were sugar snap peas in their small garden in the backyard. Also, tomatoes. When was the last time they were watered? All the plants in the garden were going to whither and die. His Dad didn't eat enough vegetables. He was tired all the time. Maybe he needed to go home to water the plants.

His chest was on fire. His head felt like a balloon that was going to pop. Someone put a paper bag in his hands. "Breathe," the nurse said. "Into the bag."

They were in the nurse's office. His Dad had been called.

Oh no, Stiles thought. They woke up his Dad. He didn't need to be driving to school on negative-three hours of sleep. He was going to drift at the wheel. "Breathe into the bag," the nurse told him again. He was sitting on the edge of a chair, and the hard plastic dug into the soft muscle under his thighs. She told him a story about herself; it sounded like a love story. Some words made it through the film that seemed to cling to Stiles' ears, and then more of them, as he tried to focus on her voice.

"There you go," she said, just as his Dad burst in through the door. The paper bag went pop.

They said Adult Things to each other while the buzzing in his ears went away, and the fire went out in his chest. It hurt to breathe, but at least he was breathing.

"I think he should see a doctor," the nurse said to his Dad, who immediately went over to Stiles and checked him for signs of injury. There were none. "No," the nurse amended with concerned eyes. "I mean, a psychiatrist."

Stiles said, "I'm fine," but his voice cracked and he coughed, and it felt like his heart was dislodged and rattling about in his chest. His fingers shook.

Dad sighed, threw his hands up in the air. The action was familiar - it was him giving in to his wife, losing an argument without ever having argued in the first place. He said, "Any recommendations?"

.

Dr. Hayes was in her Active Listening pose. She had her elbows on her table, and she nodded every once in a while to show that she was still engaged. Stiles told her about the drawing that he just scratched out in her office. He didn't really like to draw, but he had drawn her a dog digging up holes in his backyard. "What's the dog's name?" she asked him.

"Otis," Stiles said. "Otis the Dog, who is ruining our backyard. He keeps digging up these holes but there's never anything there. And it's not like he's trying to hide anything, either," Stiles rambled. "But Otis keeps digging, because he's a dog and he's got nothing else to do, except for eat and sleep and poop."

Dr. Hayes laughed. "But dogs can be fun, too."

"Not Otis."

"Why not?"

"He used to play fetch but he never wants to anymore. He just keeps digging holes. Pretty soon the backyard is going to be a hole-yard. I mean, a yard full of holes. The garden's all dug up."

"What garden?" She pointed to the picture. There wasn't one that Stiles had drawn.

Stiles shrugged.

"How does Otis feel about digging up the garden?"

Stiles shrugged again.

Dr. Hayes stayed silent but intent. She seemed like she really wanted to know.

"He feels sad, I guess. It was a nice garden. He feels guilty about all the other holes, too," Stiles began, getting into it. "His owner keeps coming into the backyard and saying, Otis, buddy, come on. Please stop making a mess. But Otis is a dog and he can't stop so he keeps making a mess. His owner thinks maybe Otis is looking for a bone, or something. But Otis isn't looking for a bone. He's looking for a toy."

"What kind of toy?"

"A doll," Stiles said. "He's looking for a doll that he buried a long time ago for safekeeping. He doesn't remember that he actually buried the doll in the front yard, but he doesn't want to dig up the front yard, anyway, since everyone can see the front yard. It's bad enough that the backyard is such a mess."

"It's important for Otis to keep the messy parts in the backyard."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"So his owner doesn't get mad about it. So that everyone else can't see the mess. They live in a nice neighborhood, after all. Otis wants to help his owner keep up appearances."

"Sounds tiring." Dr. Hayes sighed, leaning her chin into the palm of her hand.

Stiles crumpled up his drawing into his fist. "It's not that bad," he insisted, defensive. "It's important to him." He tossed the drawing onto the desk, and then he picked it up again. He threw it in a high arch to land in the waste basket by her desk.

Dr. Hayes eyes twinkled in that way where she was about to tell him a secret. He was starting to recognize it, after a few weeks of meetings. Sure enough, she lowered her voice and said, "Otis wants to protect his owner from invasive questions about the behavior of his beloved dog, so he keeps his hole-digging to the backyard where no one can see."

But that wasn't a secret. That was just a summary of the story Stiles had just told her. It still felt like a secret, though.

"Yeah," Stiles nodded.

"But Otis is a puppy," Dr. Hayes continued in the same voice. "It's not his job to protect his owner. It's the owner's job to protect him."

"It's mutual," Stiles said. "They protect each other."

"I see," Dr. Hayes saw. She nodded in return. There was knocking on the door. "Two minutes," she called. The knocking stopped.

Stiles looked at the crumpled up paper that was in her waste basket. He stood and reached into it - the bin was only for papers, anyway - and took it out again, smoothing the wrinkles out on the table.

"Do you want to take that home with you?" Dr. Hayes asked him.

"Yes," Stiles said.

"Bring it back with you next time, okay. You can add more to it, if you like."

"Okay," Stiles said.

She rose from her seat and walked around her desk while Stiles clutched the picture in his hands. When she opened the door, Derek was leaning against the frame. He was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans and scuffed up Chucks, and he had his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Stiles smiled at him, waving. Derek glared first, and then narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"Stiles waved at you," Dr. Hayes noted in a way that would sound very condescending from anyone else. In her way, she just sounded like she was making an observation. The sky outside is blue. The picture on my wall is of the beach. Stiles needs a haircut. Stiles waved at you.

Derek lifted his shoulders up to his ears and then back down in a quick, sharp shrug. "Hello." His voice was unexpectedly soft.

Stiles blurted, "I'm sorry about your family," and watched in horror as Derek's face shuttered closed, eyes darkening. "Um," he said.

Derek grit his teeth.

"Okay, Stiles," Dr. Hayes intervened. His dad was napping in a chair outside in the hallway again. She put a hand on his shoulder and guided him out. "I'll see you next week."

Then Derek went inside, and they shut the door.

.

 


	2. Chapter 2

There was this one time Stiles spoke to Laura Hale in the Comic Bookz Store on Main on a Wednesday after school. He'd been 10 and his Mom was waiting outside in her car for him. A tall, leggy brunette tapped him on the shoulder. 

"Hey, kid," Laura Hale greeted. Her eyes were light and beautiful and reminded Stiles of a cloudless sky. "What are the merits of Spider-Man versus The Incredible Hulk, also their female counter-parts? I'm picking up an issue for my brother." She held up two new, crisp issues of each title and smiled at him. Stiles came up to her shoulder.

"Well," he said. "This one time Spider-Man stopped a bank robbery from happening by pretending to be able to  _actually_  conjure spiders."

When she laughed, it was with her whole body. The crisp issues crinkled in her hands and Stiles prayed for their recently departed mint-condition souls. "I wasn't even expecting an answer, but that's a good one."

The next time he talked to her was after a session with Dr. Hayes, and his Dad and Derek weren't around but Laura was, and Dr. Hayes took the five minutes she had to herself by making a coffee on her Keurig machine in her office. She came out and offered a small cup to Laura, too. Laura took it with both hands.

She'd graduated last year and let her dark brown hair grow long. It framed her pretty face in waves. She had strong, arched eyebrows and a sharp jawline, like Derek. Her eyes were heavily lined. "Thank you, Liz," she said to Dr. Hayes. "Derek's just in the restroom."

Dr. Hayes went back inside and shut her office door. Stiles sat right down next to Laura. "Where's my coffee?" he asked.

"You won't like the taste," Laura said.

"My Dad likes it enough," Stiles argued.

"Your Dad tolerates it in order to work through the night and half the day so that when he comes home it's just to sleep, so he doesn't have to see your mom's eyes in your face." She took a sip of the coffee and grimaced. Stiles' teeth ground together in his mouth.

He told her haltingly, "That wasn't nice."

"I didn't ask you to speak to me," she said.

Stiles wished he hadn't sat so close to her. He sank back into his chair and fought the pressure behind his eyes so that tears would not spill over onto his cheeks.

Laura took another sip of her coffee. When she brought the cup to her lips, the bracelets on her wrist jangled. "You're that kid," she told him. "Derek talks about you."

Stiles kept his mouth shut. He didn't want to talk to this mean older sister. His fingers were claws that ripped into the hard plastic armrests of the chair.

"Hey," Laura continued, softer this time. She seemed apologetic. "Don't listen to half of what I say. I'm angry a lot. Look, I even have a note." She put the coffee aside and dug around in her huge black leather purse, the insides jangling like her bracelets, and took out a folded piece of paper. It was a prescription. She handed it over to Stiles, who took it, frowning.

"See?" she prompted, pointing at the writing. Most of the words were words Stiles didn't recognize. "It's an antidepressant. I come see Liz on Thursdays."

Stiles gave her the note back. "Are you depressed?" 

She said, "Probably. Aren't you?"

Stiles shrugged.

"I'm Not Coping Well," she said, with capitalized words. "This note proves it." She thrust the note in front of Stiles again before stuffing it into her purse.

"I have a note, too," Stiles offered.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, but it's for something different," he admitted.

Derek came loping down the hallway, steps slowing when he saw Stiles speaking with his sister. He was wearing pretty much the same thing Stiles saw him last in, except with a light jacket pulled over his shoulders. Stiles' gaze felt magnetized to him. He watched Derek approach. Derek watched him watching him approach. Meanwhile, Laura was saying, "So what's it for, then? Are you secretly psycho? Do you have Black-Out Anger Issues?"

Derek had reached them. He stood with his legs comfortably apart, weight evenly balanced. Stiles was confident that if the urge struck him to try to push Derek over, Derek would not fall. "Not everyone is angry all the time," he told his sister, lips turned down at the corners. They had the same light and multi-faceted eyes.

"Der," Laura said. "You didn't tell me your friend was so cute." Stiles flinched, sensing a hand at his head. A moment later Laura scrubbed at his hair and scratched behind his ears, like he was their family dog. 

"Quit it!" Stiles slapped her hand away and she laughed.

"We're not friends," Derek said. "I don't even know him."

"Don't be shy." To Stiles, she continued: "You should hear him. Sometimes he comes home and just goes on and on and on about how he should have waved back at you, or tried to smile. It's like he actually wants to be  _social_."

"Laura!" Derek cried.

"Derek!" Laura cried back, smirking. Stiles went to smooth down the hair on the side of his head that Laura had fluffed up from her scratching. Just then, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and answered.

"Hello?"

"Stiles? Son, I'm sorry." There was noise in the background on the other side. His Dad sighed into the phone. For a moment, his heart seized in his chest. "There was an emergency earlier, and I got roped in. I can't leave right now. Can you wait at the office until I can come pick you up? Maybe get started on homework. Should only be another hour."

"I left my bag in the patrol," Stiles reminded him.

"Oh, hell," his Dad said. "Well, can Dr. Hayes lend you some books or something? Just - stay occupied. I'm really sorry."

"Is it a four-one-five?" Stiles asked him. He rambled off some other codes. "211? 480?" 

Around him, Laura and Derek looked at him with circles for eyes. 

"I can't say," his Dad said, like he did every time Stiles pried. "I will say that it's not  _not_  a 211."

"Okay," Stiles said. "It's okay. Laura Hale is here with her brother, so I've got company."

"Laura Hale is there?" His Dad's voice went higher.

"Yeah, she's..." Stiles chewed his lip. He couldn't exactly say  _nice_. Laura shoved his shoulder, lightly. "Cool," he finished. She smiled at him.

"Well, if that's okay."

"Dad," Stiles said firmly. "I'll be okay. Go do your job."

His Dad sighed again into the phone. "I'll make it up to you. I love you."

"Love you, too."

They hung up. 

Laura said, "You think I'm cool." 

Derek said, "You think  _Laura's_  cool," incredulous. Laura shoved him, too, with her foot.

Dr. Hayes opened the door and stood in the frame. "Derek," she greeted cheerfully. "Come right in." She was noticeably more peppy. Stiles wondered at the immediate effects of coffee.

Derek went in, and then it was just he and Laura in the waiting area. Stiles picked at a thread in his jeans. He looked at the pile of magazines on the table at the other end of the line of chairs, but then he remembered the gardening magazine from the first session, and he didn't want to look anymore.

"Wanna get out of here?" Laura asked a moment later. She had a crooked smile. One of her teeth was too sharp.

"I'm not supposed to go anywhere with strangers," Stiles said.

"We both suffered tremendous losses recently. We both see Dr. Hayes. We both have to deal with the social awkward that is Derek. Honey, we're practically family," Laura argued.

"Come on," she pleaded when she saw that Stiles was still hesitant. "I'm famished." She paused. "That means hungry."

"I know what famished means," Stiles said hotly. "I'm not an idiot."

"I'm just covering my bases," Laura assuaged. "I'm sure you're very smart."

.

Laura drove them to the next block of stores over, and they went through a drive-through for some curly fries and strawberry milkshakes. They ate them in her car, and Stiles told her the entire plot with necessary dialogue of the most recent book he was reading, which was about a group of friends who were taking a trip to bring their recently-passed friend's ashes to a place that shared his name.

"Sounds kiddy," Laura said with a mouthful of fries. She slurped at her milkshake loudly and put the car into drive. Stiles wanted to tell her to keep both hands on the wheel, but Laura seemed pretty adept at driving with her elbows.

"It's not kiddy," Stiles protested, offended. "It's about grief and stuff." The fries today were super salty. He stuffed at least five into his mouth.

"Did Liz tell you to read it?" She turned sharply at an intersection and Stiles nearly lost his milkshake to the swerve.

"No. I told  _her_  to read it."

"Aren't you a big man," Laura crowed. They pulled into the parking lot of the office complex, a grid of spaces in front of a standard four-floor grey building. She turned on the radio but shut off the engine and cracked some windows. The music blasted from her speakers, and they ate like that, comfortable to let the music take over.

When Stiles was down to the dredges of his milkshake and picking at tiny potato pieces at the bottom of the paper container, he decided he was tired of this station and went to change it. Laura slapped at his hand before it could get near the button. "Don't touch my radio, Ian!" she shouted over the music.

Stiles froze with his hand in midair, his eyes huge. Laura froze, too. Stiles couldn't see the expression she was making on her face, but her jaw tightened and her skin paled. She sat back and covered her face with both hands, shrinking into herself. The music was too loud. Stiles turned it down. After a moment, he could hear Laura crying over it.

"I'm sorry," Stiles said. "Who's Ian?"

"Can you get out of my car, please," Laura asked in a very small voice.

"I'm sorry," Stiles said again, because it seemed to bear repeating.

Laura screamed, "Get out of my car!" and Stiles startled. He got out of her car with his empty cup and container. He was afraid to turn his back on her, so he didn't, as he walked back into the offices. Finally, he had to turn when the elevator came for him to ride to the fourth floor. He got in.

The doors slid closed and he could still see Laura as the space between them narrowed, head in her hands.

.

His Dad took him to the barber's on Sunday because his hair kept falling into his eyes, and he kept having to swish his head to be able to see, and his Dad didn't say, but with everything else going on, he had the suspicion that his Dad was worried it was becoming a tic.

"The usual?" the barber asked, snapping some scissors open and closed perilously close to Stiles' ear as he sat in the chair. His Dad was in the next seat, getting his own trim. "How are you getting on? I'm sorry about your Mama."

Stiles smiled at him, because he'd heard that enough times for it not to mean anything anymore. When other people said they were sorry about a death you experienced, they weren't really looking to make  _you_  feel better, he'd quickly realized. They wanted acknowledgment that they had sympathized, a stamp of good character on their life. "Thank you," Stiles said, not answering any of the questions.

The barber with his Dad didn't say anything, but Dad had been going to this barber for years, even before Stiles was born. Maybe they knew enough about each other for conversation to be superfluous.

"The usual?" his barber asked again.

Stiles looked at himself in the mirror. Little Cabbage, his Mom called him. There was a little wave to his brown locks, and it flared about his head like an untamed crown. His mother used to run her fingers through it when he had trouble sleeping, pretending to check for lice like they did in school. "Shave it," Stiles said.

The barber looked at him in the mirror, too. He put down the scissors and picked up the clippers, and then he set to work.

.

At school his shaved head was something of an anomaly, and other kids tried to rub it throughout the day, like it was that big-bellied statue that he thought was Buddha (someone told him it wasn't, really), but the only person he let touch it was Scott, who bore the privilege with aplomb. During lunch, they sat with Tiffany and Kyle, and Tiffany asked, "What does it feel like?"

Scott scratched at Stiles' scalp with one hand. The other held a peanut butter and jelly sandwich his mom had packed him for lunch. He also had carrot sticks and a diet soda. Stiles mostly had to pack his own lunch these days - not that he minded, since his Dad could not make macaroni and cheese from a box - but he'd forgotten this morning and had to get the slop they served in the cafeteria for lunch. It vaguely resembled a taco.

"Like after a good game, when you get tired but you're also ramped up from scoring, and you lay down on the grass and make angels and stuff with your arms."

"Aw," Stiles said. Scott skimmed his palm over the short hairs, making his scalp prickle.

"Are you going to keep buzzing it?"

Stiles shrugged, though he didn't see why not. 

While they were cleaning up for lunch, Jackson ran up to him and attempted to knock his tray to the ground. It didn't work, since Stiles was near the garbage bins anyway, so all Jackson ended up doing was tipping his mostly still-full tray into the disposal. "Loser," he still sneered. "With a stupid haircut." Behind them, Tiffany gasped.

Stiles couldn't keep the grin off his face. He shoved Jackson in the shoulder and he stumbled, surprised at the retaliation. Normally, Stiles was pretty chatty when Jackson lashed out; they hadn't had a physical fight since the second grade. Now though, he saw Jackson's sneer and wanted to wipe it off his face. It wasn't fair, he thought, just like he did at the funeral. It wasn't fair. Jackson grinned and shoved Stiles, too.

Then Kyle was yanking on Stiles' collar, and Scott on Jackson's, prying the two scrabbling boys apart. Somehow they had both fallen to the floor, and Jackson was cuffing Stiles on the ear, and Stiles was trying really hard to stick his fingers up Jackson's nose. Jackson grinned wider. "Feels good, doesn't it?" he growled when they had finally been pulled apart, two teachers catching on to the commotion to dole out discipline.

Stiles didn't answer. He didn't have to.

.

The school gave him and Jackson detention for a week. They suffered together in reluctant togetherness after school, and Stiles had to miss his weekly appointment with Dr. Hayes.

His Dad had been angry for about 2 seconds. Maybe less. He'd taken one look at his son sitting hunched in the principal's office and deflated. Technically, Stiles was grounded, but there weren't many people around who could ensure that.

He came home, and his Dad was usually there for a couple of hours, and then he had to get back to work again. Stiles did all his homework - on time, even - and when that was done he made lists of things they needed to pick up when they went grocery shopping, or walked around the house in his pajamas looking at pictures of his Mom. He wasn't allowed the television or his computer. He tried really hard to be a Good Kid and avoid the electronics, and was mostly successful.

On Saturday, in the middle of rummaging the kitchen looking for the ingredients to make a nicely spiced frittata (he slipped and used the internet to look up the recipe, but who would tell?), he opened one of the drawers under the counter near the fridge and found dozens of packets of seeds.

There were little pouches promising peas, and tomatoes, and squash. He skimmed his hand over the packets in the drawer and thought of the withering garden in their backyard. Gardening wasn't electronics, and it had been some time since he'd gone back there - since around when Mom started getting Really Bad. When it hurt her to walk or stand for longer periods of time. The inside of the house was starting to get boring without the hum of the TV or the glare of his computer. He could only read for so long, and it reminded him of the hospital. No electronics allowed.

Decided, he grabbed a packet of tomato seeds and walked the short distance to the door out to their enclosed back yard and stepped out onto the grass. The sky was beginning to get dark, purple skirting the horizon and bleeding into inky blue. His Dad wouldn't be home any time soon. He stood there for a while, not taking anymore steps, just looking.

The garden was bare. No one had been taking care of it. The overturned dirt reminded him of his mother's grave, and his throat turned to ash.

The house drew him back in to her insides, where it was warm and safe and in the pictures his mother was still alive, and he could close his eyes and sit on the couch and imagine that his Mom was just out getting groceries, getting ready to cook dinner. He could remember the sounds that she made in the kitchen - the way she hummed and clanged the pots, the sizzling of hot oil. The timer, every once in a while.

The timer rang again.

And again.

And again.

He opened his eyes. He realized that someone was actually knocking on the door. The packet of seeds was still clutched in his hands.

He could see blurry shapes through the distressed window of the door. Two people: a male and a female. Cautiously, he picked up the baseball bat his Dad made him keep near the entrance, where other people might leave umbrellas, and held it tight in his fist.

He opened the door.

Laura Hale beamed at him.

"See! He's totally fine, you worry-wart," she gestured as she spoke, as if to emphasize how fine Stiles was. Derek stood next to her with his hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket. Laura was wearing a leather jacket as well, but hers was tight and cropped. They looked like they had dressed as twins.

"I wasn't worried," Derek mumbled, not quite meeting Stiles' eyes.

Stiles put the baseball bat back down with a clunk. "What are you doing here?"

The Hale siblings seemed to be otherworldly on his porch, like they belonged in the glossy pages of a magazine, or maybe in space.

"We missed you," Laura sang.

"We heard you got into a fight," Derek said. "Funny, you don't  _look_  like you did."

"And you shaved your head!" Without warning, Laura reached over and rubbed her hand over his head. He ducked reflexively. She laughed.

Derek said, "Personal space," and she reluctantly dropped her hand, but Stiles honestly didn't mind. Laura had the type of aura where you couldn't help but pay attention, like she carried her own gravity around with her, and other thoughts were unnecessary. Derek, though.

Derek was a black hole.

"I'm grounded," Stiles told them, still standing aside to let them in. They didn't move. Behind them, he could see Laura's car, the Camaro, parked near his mailbox.

"We're going to the diner," Laura announced.  She looked at Stiles expectantly. So did Derek.

Stiles said, "Okay. What's that got to do with me?"

"You're coming with us." He was surprised that Derek had been the one to say that. He squinted at him. Derek squinted back, but it was a nice, playful kind of squint, like his lips were trying to smile.

"But I'm grounded," Stiles said again. "And I'm in my pajamas. It's like nine-thirty. If I'm not home when my Dad's home he'll  _literally flip_. Like, flip this house over. Like the Hulk."

"Stilinski, if you are the type of guy who is going to let a little parental authority get in the way of a night full of adventure, then I have misjudged you," Laura announced. 

"You don't know me," Stiles said.

"I bought you fries that one time, so you owe me."

"By going with you to the diner? Where you'll buy me more fries? So that I'll owe you again? I think that's what they call a cycle of entrapment." Stiles crossed his arms. He put his foot down. The night was chilly, and he could feel the little hairs on his arms and legs standing on end in the open doorway, uncovered as they were by the short sleeves of his t-shirt and inseam of his boxers.

"Cycle of entrapment," Derek repeated, eyebrows rising up to his hairline. It made his eyes seem impossibly light. "When does your dad get home?"

Stiles looked down at his toes. "...Usually around four."

Derek didn't grin, not like Laura, but his eyes took on a shine of amusement. "You could choose not to order anything at diner," he suggested. "Avoid that cycle."

"Excuse you. Yeah, that's not going to happen."

Laura propped her elbow against the doorframe and leaned, like Stiles was one of those girls who was being propositioned by an older man in the movies his Dad didn't like for him to watch. "Come on," she purred. "Live a little."

Stiles teetered on the edge of his decision, but those words tipped him over.  _Live a little_. Stiles could do that. Stiles was  _alive_. His Mom was never coming back, but meanwhile Stiles was stuck on this earth doing - what? Rotting under practically self-imposed house arrest? He sighed.

"Let me put on some more clothes," he said, and left them both by the door.

.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The diner was full of people Stiles could almost recognize. People who could have been part of the high school lacrosse team, older brothers and sisters to some classmates of his in the sixth grade. Laura waved at some of them halfheartedly, and Derek didn't even try.

"You know them?" Stiles asked the Hales as they sat in an empty booth, Laura and Stiles on one side, and Derek on the other. There had been only one; apparently the diner was the place to be on a Saturday night. He was talking about a group of girls and boys clustered over two booths at the opposite side of the diner who kept glancing over their shoulders at them.

Laura shrugged. "I went to public school for elementary before we all started at West Prep."

West Prep was a private school that was at least half an hour's drive away. They had uniforms and Wednesday chapel service.

" _All_  of you?" Stiles gaped. He couldn't imagine the kind of money involved in sending all the Hale children there. He knew from the news reports that Laura and Derek had survived, but their three cousins had not.

"Dad was friends with the Dean," Derek explained without shame. "It's a good school."

"Do you still go there?" Stiles eyed him quizzically. It didn't seem like Derek still went to school. It seemed like he had grown from sixteen to twenty-three overnight, like the fire had burned the child right out of him. It probably had, in a way. Stiles certainly didn't feel like he was twelve.

Derek said, "Taking a leave," and nothing else. It seemed like a sore point, like a vulnerability, so Stiles did his best not to dig into it.

"Okay," he said, even though he wanted to ask more.

Their waitress came by the table, standing in front of them with her lips pursed. She looked at Stiles for a moment longer than he was comfortable, assessing. He glanced around the whole diner - he was easily the youngest body in here. Laura ordered a basket of fries she promised she would share with Stiles, and Stiles ordered a slice of apple pie. Derek ordered an entire meal - hamburger, fries, shake, side salad.

"We  _just_  had Chinese," Laura reminded her brother.

"And yet  _you_  wanted to go to a diner," Derek said.

"Because  _you_  were moping around the apartment and driving Peter absolutely insane. More insane. Honestly, I don't know how you and him will be able to live together until you're 18." Laura shook her head, blew her hair out of her face. Derek folded his arms into the table.

"I can be legally emancipated, you know," he said. "If I really wanted to."

"What's that?" Stiles interrupted. He didn't like the sudden tone their conversation had taken on, the kind of tone his Dad sometimes used during interrogations - he'd seen once on a Take-Your-Kid-to-Work Day.

"It's when kids get divorced from their parents," Laura explained.

"But." Stiles was confused. Derek and Laura's parents died in the fire.

"Peter is our legal guardian," Derek offered. "And I don't - he's okay. He's not bad, or anything. He's just feeling the same things we're feeling. It's--"

"Suffocating," Laura finished with a wicked glint of her teeth.

Their waitress came back with the fries and pie and half of Derek's meal. He ripped into the hamburger, choosing to eat instead of talk.

"So you had to get out," Stiles surmised.

"Hell yeah," Laura chimed. She tossed a fry into her mouth, then offered Stiles a piece. He took it.

He said, "There's no one around anymore in my house to avoid," and then he realized how that sounded, and nearly choked on the fry in an attempt to get his next words out. "I mean - I just mean I totally get needing to get out but I guess for me it's the opposite? I think if I had been grounded another week I would have reenacted parts of  _The Shining_."

Derek smirked around a mouthful of hamburger. Laura said, "Chill, Stiles."

Stiles stabbed into his apple pie. The first burst of flavor was too sweet, too heavily flavored with vanilla. Nothing like his mother's. He wondered when he would stop comparing things to his Mom's. Probably never.

"So what's new in the world of Stiles Stilinski?" Laura asked next, after the waitress brought over the rest of Derek's food.

"Nothing," Stiles answered automatically, but Laura was persistent. Derek leaned in, too, putting his elbows on the table while eating.

"You got into a fight, you shaved your head. Clearly, something is up," Laura pressed. She gasped, her face one of sudden realization as she slapped her palms against the table. Derek winced at the noise. "You changed your look and tried to be tough! Stiles, are you trying to impress a lady?"

Derek snorted. Stiles took offense to that, but he really, really wasn't.

"No! Nothing's up. I got into a fight because Jackson's stupid, and I cut my hair because it kept getting in my face, okay?" He scowled at Laura, who continued eating her fries nonchalantly. "Things can happen without there being a reason."

As soon as he said the words he knew they were the wrong thing to say. Or, maybe not wrong, exactly. Callous. A cloud descended over their table, dense, and Stiles knew exactly the thoughts behind the silence of the Hale siblings, because they were his thoughts, too. 

It was easier to believe that things happened for a reason. The opposite was…bleak. He could believe that his Mom died because there was something out there, some plan, some design, because he  _couldn't_  believe that there wasn't. Nearly the whole of the Hale family perishing in a fire for nothing - that was unacceptable. But it was selfish, too, thinking this way. Because then Stiles also had to think, well, when he was finished, what would he have been good for? What greater design had he helped weave?

Laura said, "Derek bought that jacket so that Kate would pay more attention to him," in a way that not so much dismissed what Stiles had said as completely nullify it, like it hadn't been said at all. She nodded at the leather jacket, and Derek, if possible, started eating more like a caveman.

"Who's Kate?" Stiles asked. 

Derek didn't say anything. He continued chomping on his side salad, and when that was done, finished his hamburger. The way he was chewing was determined and focused, like he'd rather pay attention to the food being slowly digested in his mouth than on this conversation. Another sore point, Stiles guessed.

"This bitch who broke Derek's heart," Laura said, her words snapping like popped bubblegum. Stiles was too late to cover his ears. "She broke up with him  _after the funerals_."

"Can you not?" Derek growled. He nearly threw his fork down onto his plate, and it clanged.

"Just telling it like it is." Laura shrugged. Stiles wondered how often Laura had to take her note-pills. Then, as an after-thought, he remembered the last time today he had taken his. With his first dinner. About three and a half hours ago.

"Kate's a bitch; I get it," Derek said, his voice carrying through the diner. The table next to them hushed, but quickly picked up conversation again to cover it up. "You don't have to go on and on about it."

"I just don't get why you're so nonchalant about it!" Laura confessed. "She breaks up with you and you just accept it. I don't get it."

"I have some other things on my mind," Derek said.

"Yeah, well." Laura deflated, sagging into the booth. "Me, too."

The next minute passed by in morose silence, with Laura and Derek no doubt thinking about ex-girlfriends and dead family members. Stiles calculated in his head how he had about 27 more minutes before he would be Adderall-free and driving Derek and Laura up the wall.

"Who breaks up with someone after a funeral?" Stiles asked, just to fill the silence. He picked at his apple pie. It wasn't particularly good, not now after he remembered how his mother's tasted.

"Exactly!" Laura said, smug now that someone was understanding of her point of view. "She's a real piece of work."

"People like that make me really mad," Stiles told them both. He wondered what Kate looked like, how long she and Derek had dated. "Mean and never sorry."

"You've never met her," Derek argued. "You don't know that."

"I know that Laura doesn't like her.  _Still_  doesn't like her. Which means that after she broke up with you she probably didn't try to apologize or anything - at least not in a sincere way. I know you keep flinching whenever we say her name, which means Bad Memories. Dr. Hayes has been teaching me about body language. She says I'm real easy to read, sometimes. Everyone is, really. Unless they're psycho."

"Dr. Hayes used the word psycho?"

"No. She said  _functioning with a different set of strengths and weaknesses_."

"Kate's a psycho," Laura said with surety. She plucked up another fry and ate it with relish. "Always knew she was."

Derek had nothing left to eat angrily. He drank all his water, instead.

"Remember that time we went to Ian's piano recital, and you hadn't told her where you were going, and she called you  _literally_  every three minutes until you answered and took her call?"

Derek glared his sister. That was answer enough.

"Stiles," Lauren continued, undeterred. "Have you ever had a crazy ex situation?"

"I'm twelve," he said.

"Yes. So?"

"So I haven't had a girlfriend yet! I barely even think about girls! I mean - I just mean that I don't have any exes."

"Okay but think about it. Imagine that you're in love with this chick. And then your family dies. And this chick breaks up with you. What would you do?"

Stiles thought about it. He also thought about his Adderall at home. Had he even gotten his Dad to take him for a refill? "I'd probably do something to make sure she knew I was mad. Like, I don't know. Does she have a car? I'd spray paint her car, or something. Maybe with a message like they do in horror movies. Something really vague and could be anything, could even be true."

"Like what?"

"Like,  _I know_ ," Stiles said. "She'll think about what it is that you know. She'll think about all the things she did to you that were wrong and panic. What do you have on her? What's going to happen? Yeah, that's what I'd do."

Laura said, "Oh, you devious little brat."

"That means sneaky," Derek explained.

"I know what it means," Stiles said, exasperated. "I'm twelve, not a fatuous moron." He paused, glared. "That means stupid."

Derek bristled. It sent an odd sort of thrill shooting up Stiles' spine.

"Then, after that, after you spray painted her car, then what?" Laura asked. Her eyes were bright and impressed.

Stiles shrugged. "I don't know. Egg her house? But then - her parents had nothing to do with it, right? So maybe I wouldn't egg her house."

"Her parents  _raised_  her," Laura said. "Of course they had something to do with it!"

"Laura - " Derek tried, but she was already talking over him.

"That's perfect. That's what we're doing tonight. I told you we were going to have an adventure. What's better than a little vandalism in the middle of the night?"

"My Dad's the  _Sheriff_ ," Stiles reminded her, not outright saying he was against the plan. In fact, he wasn't. The house had made him a little stir-crazy, and he felt his brain lock onto the idea. 

"I won't tell if you won't tell," Laura sang. Stiles blinked at her in surprise. Usually it was that everyone worried that Stiles would snitch. He was the Sheriff's son, after all. Everyone thought, he must walk well within the lines of the law. Laura's complete disregard for that had him grinning from ear to ear. "Look at that kilowatt smile!" Laura beamed, and Stiles thought that maybe he was falling a little bit in love.

"Don't I get a say?" Derek interjected, gloomy. "Since she's my ex and all."

"Only if you agree with us," Laura quipped.

Derek fell silent again.

He didn't disagree.

.


	4. Chapter 4

They killed time in the diner, Derek glaring moodily at the table for most of it, with Laura over-sharing her own life for the past week, while Stiles paid rapt attention. Here was a girl who could talk circles around him. She was an observer and dreamer, a kite with a tenuous relationship with reality, and Derek was the string. She spoke, they listened, and then Derek drew her back down, gently.

Eventually the diner emptied out, and it was late enough that their waitress kept side-eyeing them, Stiles especially, her manicured hand hovering over the phone by the register. They knew she knew that Stiles was the Sheriff's kid.

Derek threw down a couple of bills and stood up to stretch, leather jacket creaking, and this officially announced the beginning of their night. Laura's eyes glimmered again.

"This is going to be  _so much fun_ ," she whispered dramatically.

Derek grunted. Stiles thought either he must love Laura a great deal to agree to what they were about to do, or he really did have some - or a lot of - residual feelings of anger at Kate's dumping him. "It's going to end in someone's arrest, is what it's going to be," he said.

"We've got Stilinski with us!" Laura declared. "That's our getaway clause. You'll see. His Dad loves him."

"But he doesn't love  _us_ ," Derek pointed out.

Stiles assured them both, feeling jittery, like he was waiting for the starting gun for a sprint-race. "If it comes to it, I can talk my Dad's ear off and eventually he'll get so annoyed at me talking that he'll just agree to whatever I want."

Laura waggled her eyebrows at her brother, who raised his in response. "Whatever," he said.

They made it out into the parking, where Laura's was the only car alone in front, and Laura went straight around to the back, popping the trunk with glee. Stiles followed her and peaked inside. He gasped.

There, inside, were multiple bottles of neon green spray paint, cans of hairspray, what looked like climbing rope and carabiners, and a bulk-supply of toilet paper rolls. "Jesus," Derek whistled through his teeth. "When did you have time to get all this stuff?"

"I couldn't sleep last night," Laura said, shrugging. "I snuck out while you guys were safe in bed. I  _told_  you we were going to have an adventure. I came prepared."

Derek said, "And I repeat,  _vandalism_  is not  _adventure_."

Stiles said, "Do you have yellow paint? Or gold? Do you have matches? What about eggs?"

Laura grinned down at him, like she was proud. Maybe she was. She put her arm around his shoulders and he felt a warm shiver tingle through his body. "I couldn't leave eggs in the trunk of my car."

"Ah."

"And I don't tend to carry around matches. Or a lighter." 

"Oh," Stiles said, embarrassed to have asked. Of course she didn't. Derek and Laura probably never wanted to be near anything flammable ever again.

"So your first mission -  _our_  first mission - is for you to get us a lighter. You up for that?" Laura announced. The trunk slammed shut and Stiles jumped.

"You mean like  _steal_  something?" Just saying the word made Stiles' heart race. 

Derek rolled his eyes. He did that so often Stiles was surprised that they didn't just get stuck in the back of his head. "We'll give you cash."

"No, we won't!" Laura argued. They walked around to the front. Stiles trailed behind Derek and crawled into the tiny backseat of the Camaro when he opened the door for him. They all got in, and doors slammed. "It's a test. See if he's up to snuff. Stiles, you are going to  _steal_  us a lighter."

She started the car, and it was like she had keyed him up, too, adrenaline pumping with the rev of the engine. "I'm up to snuff," Stiles promised her. She hummed and turned up the music. Derek sank into the passenger seat and pushed Stiles' head back, broad hand on Stiles' face when he tried to climb up to the front to make them hear: "I'm up to snuff!" 

Laura laughed as they peeled away and out into the night. The music was loud; she screamed the words to the song, and Derek's smile was a secret, tucked into the corner of his mouth.

.

They pulled into a gas station, even though the tank was still mostly full, because Laura deemed the station the perfect place to swipe a lighter. "Don't choke," Derek said encouragingly when they all got out, and Laura started to lift the nozzle of the gas pump. 

"Ha ha," Stiles said without any humor, glaring at the older boy. They had talked about what he could do, how they would run after swiping the little plastic thing, but Stiles saw there was a gaggle of older teens lingering by the entrance into the little store, smoking. He glanced at Laura, made eye contact, and she nodded a little, like she was giving permission. She looked at the gaggle of teens, too.

Stiles' heart was beating fast, but he wasn't nervous, not really. He'd taken his last dose of Adderall over four hours ago, and he could tell it had worn off. Before Dr. Hayes, there had been Dr. Lowe, who taught him about all the little signals this body would give him to tell him he was ADHD-Stiles and no longer Medicated-Stiles. 

Medicated-Stiles spoke a little slower than ADHD-Stiles. He flailed a little less. He thought about his decisions a little bit more. But he also got tired more easily, and they had to spend a lot of time figuring out the right dose that wouldn't so that Stiles could function less like a zombie and more like an actual human being for most of the day, because before they figured it out it was like he was one of those patients who was awake but trapped inside his own body. In a word, horrible.

ADHD-Stiles did things. That was the best way he could explain it to himself. He did things and things were done and he never thought about them until after, until he had to.

Stiles walked up to the group of teens and asked for a bump. 

They all froze, all six of them, three girls and three boys, all matched up in pairs, and one of the boys went, "The fuck?"

The girl next to him was pretty. She was small and thin-boned with big eyes and short-cropped hair. She blew smoke out of her nose like a dragon. "Just give him one, Ty. Little guy wants to smoke."

The other teens laughed. Ty grumbled, but he listened to the girl next to him and shook out a cigarette from the carton he kept in the pocket of his jeans. "Can't get arrested for this, right?" he asked, more for the sake of asking than for actually getting an answer. Stiles knew the answer, of course, but he didn't tell him, especially since he was planning on stealing something from them. Meanwhile, Laura was slowly finishing up with her car, and Derek was walking around to the front with a window-cleaner.

"Can I get a light?"

The girl smirked. He hoped she wouldn't be the one offering her light, because she seemed nice and he didn't want to steal from her. Instead, the girl next to her fished around in her purse for one, and pulled it out. She leaned forward with it outstretched in her hand, and Stiles placed the cigarette between his lips like he'd seen other people do. It tasted bitter and ashy and not at all like something he'd want stuck in his mouth repeatedly. The girl flicked her thumb on the lighter, and a small flame sprang up.

He held the end of the cigarette against the flame for a moment, watching the orange and yellow fire lick greedily at the thin paper. 

"You've got to inhale," the nice girl said.

He looked at the lighter. It was really plain - red with a black cap and silver workings. The fire was dwindling as he watched. His fingers itched for it. "Sorry," he mumbled around the stick in his mouth. 

ADHD-Stiles swiped the lighter from the girl's hand easily, so unexpected the action was. Her hand stayed frozen and empty. Who wanted to steal a  _lighter_?

But Stiles did, and he did because Laura and Derek asked him to. The lighter firmly clasped in his hand, he turned tail and ran. Ty tried to reach out to grab him, but Stiles was fast, and Laura was starting the car. The engine revved as Stiles slid into the backseat, nearly braining himself on the doorframe, one of the teens jerking to a stop as he decided to give chase and give up just as abruptly.

When the car pulled away, the back tires squealed, like something out of a movie, and soon they were watching the dumbfounded faces of the group of teenagers through the back window and the rear-view mirror, and it took a moment, but they realized they were all laughing.

"You just took it and ran!" Laura shrieked. "That was amazing!"

Stiles was beaming in the backseat. Derek turned around to look at him, to smile at him, and that made Stiles beam even brighter, heart pounding in his chest.

"Okay," Laura announced. Derek turned back around in his seat. "Phase Two."

Next to her, Derek shivered minutely. It was almost unseen, but Stiles noticed, because he was watching what Laura wasn't. 

.

Phase Two turned out to be splitting up a can of Red Bull, because they wanted to be wired but not  _too_  wired - it wasn't like the plan was to stay out all night, or anything - and then Phase 2.5 was navigating the now-dark streets of Beacon Hills to the Argent's residence. Laura had turned the music down until it was a barely-there hum in the backseat, and Stiles had sat back and looked up at the sky through the rear window, counting stars and feeling the thrum of chemical-energy grow steadily stronger in his veins.

"I'm at least 98% certain that I know where Kate lives," Derek was saying, "Since I used to date her and all."

Laura grumbled. "It was dark! Why do we have horrible street lights? You can't blame me for turning down the wrong street into a dead-end, okay. I couldn't read the signs!"

"Turn here," Derek ordered.

Laura turned. Stiles watched the sky pivot as if on an axis.

They passed by gigantic houses on either side of the street, houses with wraparound driveways and arches above their doors, houses with landscaped front-yards and pools out back. Most of them were dark. One or two they passed still had lights on in some of the windows, but for the most part, the neighborhood was quiet.

"Here," Derek said in front of a house. It looked just like the others, and all the lights were off. Laura paused for a moment, but then the car was rolling forward again.

Stiles sat up and peered out the small side window at the house, but Laura kept going.

"Laura, Derek said it's this one," Stiles pointed out.

"There's no way we're parking right in front of the scene of the crime," Laura told them lightly.

"Can you not call it that?" Derek asked her, baring his teeth a little at his sister.

"Why? That's what it is."

Stiles gulped. That was exactly what it was. They were about to commit a crime. Oh, his Dad was going to kill him. The Red Bull they'd shared earlier was making his fingers twitch, and now his heart was thrumming uncomfortably in his chest. He inhaled slowly, and the air tasted metallic. He coughed.

Derek turned, concern in the dip of his eyebrows, which quickly widened in something resembling panic. "You okay?" he asked Stiles, but his voice sounded very far away.

Stiles nodded frantically. He was okay. He would be okay. Dr. Hayes had taught him about this, too. Fight or flight, right? But it was hard to remember what he was supposed to do when his chest hurt so much, and it felt like there were fingers squeezing out all the air in his lungs.

Laura was pulling the car over.

As soon as they were stopped, Derek wrenched open their side of the car and pulled Stiles out, and he wanted to tell him that it wasn't claustrophobia or anything like that, it wasn't the tight spaces. It was the look on his Dad's face, his disappointment if he found out. It would kill him.

He was sitting on the side walk looking up at the stars again and Derek was a hazy shape in the edge of his vision. He didn't want to disappoint his Dad, he realized, not after everything they'd been through. "I can't," he wheezed, groaning at the broad strokes of Derek's hands on his back. He tried focusing on his touch, could feel himself calming, but it wasn't enough. Suddenly, Laura thrust an empty plastic bag in his face. It smelled like pretzels.

Stiles took it gratefully, breathing into it immediately and listening to the crinkle of the material as his breath filled the bag, watched it deflate as he inhaled again. Again and again, recycling his own air.

Lights flickered on at the house. Someone opened the door and stepped out into the crisp air from inside. "Is everything okay?" the person asked. "Derek?"

Derek turned sharply, as did Laura. Stiles puffed into the bag and let his eyes drift toward the man in the doorway, since he knew from experience that any sudden movements would violently nauseate him. The man was young, strong-jawed and wearing nothing more than his pajamas.

"Everything's good," Derek called back, gritting his teeth. 

"You sure?" The man stepped out, peering into the darkness of the street. The light from the house crept across the front lawn and ended just before Stiles and Laura and the car. "I can call someone."

Derek's shoulders stiffened. He'd stopped rubbing Stiles' back and inexplicably, the flat of his palm was growing too warm against Stiles' shirt. "Yeah," he assured him.

The man said something else, but it didn't carry, and then he was stepping inside his house again and closing the door. A few moments later, the lights flickered off.

"Who was that?" Stiles mumbled into the bag.

"Chris," Laura answered for Derek. "Kate's brother."

"Kate probably knows we're here," Derek said.

"Sorry," Stiles apologized, shoulders slumping. He crumpled up the bag and licked his lips, which were salty now from the lingering pretzel flavor.

"Don't apologize." Laura hauled him up by his armpits while Derek rose slowly. She brushed off his jeans, motherly. Or maybe just big-sisterly. "It was my crazy-dumb idea, anyway."

"Yeah, but--"

Laura bopped him on the nose. "Don't ever scare us like that again, okay? If you didn't want to do this, you could have told us."

"I  _did_  want to," Stiles insisted. "You guys are so cool."

"Oh, god, we're leading him down a path of delinquency," Laura mused. She turned to Derek to share her amusement, but Derek was singularly focused on the house. More specifically, on one window overlooking the front lawn of the house. The window was dark, but Stiles got the feeling that there was someone there behind the curtains, watching them. He also got the feeling that it was Kate.

"Get me a bottle of spray paint," Derek said.

"Excuse me?" Laura looked affronted.

"Get me a bottle of spray paint,  _please_ ," Derek amended.

Laura shrugged. She went around the back and got him a bottle of neon green spray paint. Derek shook the can, making his click over and over again, and then he stalked across the lawn and stood right in front of the giant closed garage doors. There weren't any cars in the driveway. He shook the can some more, his leather jacket stretching across his shoulders and back, and then he opened the can.

When they were driving away, Laura stopped to let them throw out the incriminating can in front of a McDonald's. Derek didn't seem happier, but he did seem - lighter. Like he'd tossed something from his shoulders and didn't have to bear the weight anymore.

"What's that word mean that you painted on the garage?" Stiles asked them as they were driving him back to his place. It was nearing two in the morning, so he had plenty of time before his Dad got home.

"Stiles," Laura said sagely. "It is a word that does not bear repeating out of a twelve-year-old's mouth. Forget you ever saw it. Wipe it from your memory."

"Ask Dr. Hayes about it," Derek said. 

Laura slapped him on the arm.

.

He slept the next day until the sun was slanting hot through the shades, and his Dad was knocking on his door and stepping in, making the floor creak. Stiles had changed back into his pajamas and was still sprawled on top of his covers, which was how he had landed on his bed last night.

"Hey, buddy," his Dad said, his voice rough with sleep. There was a little huff of laughter in it. Stiles roused. The sun was making his back too warm, and it reminded him of last night, sitting on the sidewalk, with Derek's hand pressed between his shoulders.

"Please don't tell me you stayed up until 3 playing video games with Scott," his Dad said next.

"Okay," Stiles said, grateful that he didn't have to lie. "So I won't tell you." He pushed himself up onto his elbows and then sat up, stretching his arms high over his head. He scratched absently at his stomach.

"Everything okay last night, then? You know Ms. McCall offered to let you stay over at theirs, if you want. For the nights that I'm out until an unreasonable hour."

It was a tempting offer, but Stiles told him, "Everything was okay." 

They had waffles with liberal amounts of peanut butter drizzled over them together that afternoon, sitting together on their couch and watching sports highlights from the past week. Over the next few days, there was no mention of the spray paint over the Argent's door in any papers or local news reports, and his Dad didn't seem to know about it, either.

Derek texted him while he was on the couch with his Dad.  _Get in trouble?_

_No_ , Stiles texted back shortly, turning the face of the phone away from his Dad in case he craned his neck to look.  _You?_

There was no response for a while, and when his phone buzzed again, it said,  _No. Peter actually bought us cupcakes_.

He imagined the Hales with their uncle sitting around the kitchen table, digging into a box of cupcakes and getting frosting all over their fingers and faces, swapping stories about mundane ordinary events and outrageous revenge plots. His Dad looked over then, and Stiles imagined the same sort of thing happening with his Dad, but it wasn't right. It didn't feel - 

Stiles loved his Dad, and he knew his Dad loved him, but his Dad was never going to be the sort of Dad who was going to surprise him with cupcakes, or know what his favorite movie was, or remind him that he had an assignment due.

And that was okay. Stiles could do all of those things himself, anyway.

He smiled at him. His Dad wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hauled him in for a sideways bear-hug. He ruffled his buzzed hair a little, and it tickled. Stiles laughed.

Things were going to be okay.

.


	5. Chapter 5

"Your Dad doesn't even pay her for this?" Scott asked in something barely above a whisper. They were in the local park, the baseball they were tossing back and forth making satisfying thumps into their mitts as they threw it. Laura sat in one of the nearby swings at the play-structure, reading something on her phone. She kicked her legs idly, and the swing set creaked. It was edging winter, so that when they spoke, they could see their breaths frozen in the air.

"No." Stiles shrugged.  _Thump_ , went the baseball. "Sometimes he gives her gas money, though. Besides, she's my friend."

"But she's like, so old."

"She is not." The next thump was particularly loud, and Scott recoiled a little bit from the force of Stiles' throw. "Sorry."

Scott chuckled a little bit sheepishly. "No, I just mean like, she's in college and stuff. That's cool that you're friends."

Stiles frowned. He didn't want to think about how in a few measly weeks, Laura and Derek and Peter were moving over the winter break all the way across the country to New York, where they had some relatives and Laura would be going to college, and Derek would be finishing high school. He had been angry when they first told him over milkshakes, like the treat would appease him. Then he had ignored their calls and wallowed miserably around the house.

"Everyone's leaving me," he had told Dr. Hayes. "Everyone's left."

But of course, that wasn't the case. He still had Scott, and his Dad, and Ms. McCall. He still had his phone and he could call them, and they would undoubtably visit, seeing as they were rich and all (this came purely out of Stiles' mouth, though Dr. Hayes did not disagree).

Finally, his Dad had to interfere, because Stiles being miserable was making him miserable. That started a series of dinners at the Hales when his Dad was 'on duty,' which morphed into what Stiles refused to call play dates but which were, in fact, play dates.

"I guess," Stiles shrugged noncommittally, catching the baseball with his gloved hand. "I wish Derek was here, though. He'd make her play with us and not just sit over there WITH HER NOSE GLUED TO HER PHONE." The last bit he screamed so that Laura would hear. Predictably, she looked up and stuck her tongue out to him.

Stiles stuck his tongue out in return.

Which is when Scott's aim got miraculously 210% better, and he threw the ball so that it collided into Stiles' shoulder, making a thumping sound that stunned him more than the actual ball. It didn't hurt, at first, but gradually pain made itself known in small increments, crawling up from the spot where a bruise would be forming like little spiders, until it reached his brain. He felt tears prickling at the backs of his eyes unwillingly as Scott rushed over, and then Laura.

Their eyes were very wide.

"Oh, my god!" Scott was saying, immensely apologetic and able to take on extreme amounts of guilt. "Ohmygod, Stiles! I'm so sorry! I'm a bad friend! Oh my god!" He grasped his own head between his hands like he was going to squeeze his own brain out from his ears.

"Ow, ow, ow,  _ow_ ," Stiles said.

Laura stood in front of him, bending a little at the knees, and swiped the pad of her thumb over his cheek, where some tears had spilled over. "Can you move your arm?"

Stiles moved his arm.

Laura heaved out a sigh, smiling a tiny smile. She said, "Well, Scott didn't break anything, so if anything he'll just have to offer to carry your books for you for the rest of the month." 

Scott nodded emphatically.

"I don't want to play anymore," Stiles pouted. 

"I'm so, so,  _so_ sorry," Scott rambled. "We're still friends, right? You're my best friend!"

Stiles hedged, shifting his gaze over to Laura, who raised her palms out in a universal gesture of Do Not Involve Me. "Well..." he trailed, grinning when Scott let out a wail of despair. "Okay, yes, of course!

They put the mitts away after that and walked the short distance back to Laura's car, Scott's arm slung across Stiles' shoulders. On the way back to the Hales', they stopped for a half-dozen cupcakes. Stiles made Laura get two chocolate-with-peanut-butter-frostings, because he knew they were Derek's favorite.

.

In school all the teachers had ganged up to assign big culminating chunks of their grades that would all be due before the students were released before winter break. Well, that was certainly what it felt like, anyway. 

He had projects both in math and science, a history paper, a health presentation, and a "creative writing piece" for English all due that Thursday, which meant he had hardly any time at all to hang out with Scott or Derek or Laura, although once someone delivered some cookies to his house along with a brief card that said _good luck don't fail_ on it in neat script. And Scott texted him frequently, since their parents had agreed that during this crunch time, there would be No Distractions in the form of their awesome brotherhood.

He was mostly done with everything except for his English paper, and he stared at the blinking cursor as he read and reread the prompt their teacher had given them. It was a simple prompt, really, but also unrelenting.

_Every family has a story. Write me one of yours._

He had notes. Half paragraphs and phrases and things that he thought he wanted to write about. 

There was this time he and his mom and his dad took a road-trip to Disneyland and Stiles was sick the whole way down and completely miserable, but they all soldiered through it, and he rode his favorite roller coaster about twenty-seven times.

And then there was this time he stayed up to watch a scary movie when he was very young and his mother indulgent, and by the time his father had come home from work exhausted and worn it had been to Stiles sleeping soundly at his mother's side, even though he was much too old for that, now. Nevertheless he slept sandwiched between them that night, safe from the imagined monsters.

And then there was that time Stiles got in trouble at school for pushing Jackson into the mud after Jackson told Lydia she was wrong about something. That was when it began, really. Stiles got called to the principal's and his mother had come and sat calmly by while the principal told her what happened, and then she had proceeded to eviscerate the principal's logic in punishing her only son where surely he should be honored for sticking up for another classmate. Stiles had indeed gotten off. Which made Jackson only more irritated at him.

And then there was that time his mother couldn't walk up the stairs - the first time - and they took her to the hospital and he and his Dad waited while the doctors checked her charts and blood tests and other things that Stiles didn't understand, and that night had been the first he had spent in her hospital room, his Dad sleeping in a stiff chair by the bed and Stiles curled up at his mother's feet.

And then there was that time he had to stand next to his Dad at the funeral, but he honestly doesn't remember much of that day at all.

So, he wrote about all of these times, about his mother and his father and how sometimes they felt so empty without her that they don't even know what to do, and then he found himself writing about Scott and Dr. Hayes and the Hales and that first time he spent dinner with them around their table, too.

_I can't write just one story about my family_ , Stiles typed out slowly, at the beginning.  _Because one story has a beginning and a middle and an end. And for my family, everything is always changing and nothing has ended._

.

On the first Monday of vacation, Stiles called Derek.

He picked up on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hello, Der." He'd picked up Laura's nickname for her brother, and liked to use it as often as possible. He could practically hear Derek scowling at the other end. "I need a favor."

"Is this in any way going to be illegal?" was Derek's immediate response.

"No," Stiles said resolutely. "Zero-percent illegal."

"Then, okay."

"Great. I need you to bring a shovel and a jug of water, and Laura. And possibly Scott. I'm going to call him. Can you drive over in about twenty?"

"Wha--"

But Stiles had already hung up on him. Okay, so there were a lot of things he was picking up from Laura.

.


	6. Chapter 6

Scott didn't really hang out with Laura and Derek much, so he was noticeably more quiet in the back seat next to Stiles than usual, trying to whisper conversations instead of shouting them, which was their accustomed volume. But the way Stiles kept barking directions at Laura was really getting in the way. Laura had put in some music with a lot of screaming that Derek turned down almost immediately when Stiles had gotten into the car with his book bag, until the screaming was like someone calling out from the other side of the preserve.

He had been a little bewildered when Stiles called him to tell him they were going on an adventure and that his friend Derek would be picking him up shortly, but soon enough he began to understand where they were going.

He'd been this way a few times, a couple of years back, and then more recently when Stiles asked him to come. From the way Laura and Derek silenced when Stiles said his penultimate direction before their destination, they knew where they were going, too. Stiles was hugging his book bag to his chest, but not crushing it, his arms curled around whatever was inside protectively, and he said, "Turn left here," and they were pulling up to the gates of the cemetery.

On principle, Scott didn't really enjoy the cemetery. The caretaker there kind of gave him the heebie-jeebies, even though the caretaker's son was nice enough, a quiet kid in he and Stiles' grade. The caretaker was pretty much always around, even in the few times that Scott had been to the cemetery, like a blob that lingered in your peripheral vision. When they parked and clambered out of the car, somber because of the environment, he was there, too. It looked like he was digging a fresh plot. His son with his blond curls was standing next to the plot.

Scott waved at him. He didn't get a wave back.

Stiles wasn't carrying his book bag behind him like a normal person, but carrying it between his arms and being careful to always cradle the bottom of it. Scott wondered what he had in there as Derek wrestled out a jug of water from the tiny trunk of the car, and a shovel. It was a medium-sized shovel, and a little dangerous-looking.

Stiles said, "Perfect," upon seeing the two items, and then he began to walk across the spongy grass of the cemetery, winding a sure path as Laura and Derek and Scott followed. The siblings exchanged a lot of meaningful and silent glances as they trailed behind Stiles, but Scott had figured it out. 

Scott knew exactly where Stiles was going, and he also had an inkling about why he had called everyone here. The only person really missing was Stiles' father, but Scott had a hunch that Stiles' knew about this get-together and had done whatever he was supposed to do to get it started on the right foot.

Then Stiles stopped in front of a headstone, dark against the grass, and set his book bag down gently next to it. He stared down at the words and traced his fingers across the top of the granite while they formed a half-circle around him, waiting. Derek put the shovel down. He stared it like it was weapon.

Scott had been here once before with Stiles. They'd biked up from their homes and had planned just to leave the flowers Stiles had gotten for the grave and go, but once they'd made it to the marker Stiles couldn't seem to leave. He'd started on his homework, telling Scott to get home to his own mother, but Scott had simply taken out his own homework to do, too, sitting down with his back against the stone. It was in the middle of a math problem that he realized Stiles was crying - the silent kind that meant he didn't want anyone to hear. But how could Scott  _not_  hear? 

He was sitting right next to him.

"Are you okay?" Scott had asked him, even though it was obvious he wasn't.

"I'm fine," was Stiles' choked answer.

"I won't tell anyone you were crying," Scott said, because that the nicest thing he could think of to say at that moment.

Stiles had said, "I miss her  _so much_ ," before the tears had turned a little angry, a little noisy. He'd ripped up the book he was supposed to be reading for English in his lap. Scott had to lend him his copy whenever they had an assignment from it, now. Scott thought that maybe it was a girly thing to do, but he let Stiles lay his head in his lap and have a good cry, and he even pet his hair a little and made the soothing noises his mom made for him, sometimes, when he was younger and having a bad day. 

They had biked back just as the sun was setting.

Now, he wasn't sure if Stiles was going to cry again. It certainly wouldn't be an issue if he did, but to him Stiles seemed a little older, a little sturdier around the shoulders. He'd grown up, a little, in the short time since his mother's death.

Stiles said, "This is my Mom," and stepped back to gesture at his friends he had gathered. "Mom, these are my friends. Derek, and Laura, and of course Scott." He smiled at the Hale siblings, and they smiled back, tentatively. Laura waved a little, like she wasn't quite sure what to do. "I wanted all of you guys to be here," Stiles continued, breezing right through the confusion, "because you're really special to me."

Stiles paused, cocked his head to the side. Derek, amusingly, mirrored the move.

"Also because Dr. Haynes told me I needed to do something like this," he finished wryly.

Scott grinned. From what Stiles had told him of Dr. Hayes, the psychiatrist was pretty good at figuring him out. And she probably figured out very quickly on how Stiles loved a good ritual, a well-thought out plan, a procedure. What most people didn't realize about Stiles was that he  _liked_  rules; he just got into trouble a lot because he also liked figuring out their limits.

Stiles took a deep breath and sat down on the grass. After a moment and a quick glance, the rest followed. Derek looked around the cemetery, scowling. Scott wondered if the Hale family had their own plot somewhere, or if the relatives who had passed in the fire were somewhere in this cemetery.

"My Mom really liked gardening," Stiles said. "We had a little garden in our backyard that she loved. She was really good at it, too. She could grow anything. When she died--"

Stiles paused, swallowing.

"When she died," he forced himself to say again, "Dad and me didn't know what to do about the plants. No one took care of the garden for a while, because we had to take care of each other." He pulled his book bag over and carefully unzipped it next to him. Some dirt, freshly turned and dark, tumbled out when he dragged the zipper down a little too far, and out peaked a bundle of green leaves. "I found this little guy in the back," he explained, rubbing one of the leaves between his thumb and forefinger. "Thriving."

Stiles silenced again, gazing lost at the little life form. He sighed. Derek seemed to know exactly what it was that Stiles wanted, and he hefted up the shovel with one arm and held it out, swiftly turning it around to present Stiles with the handle-end of the tool. It was nearly the length of Derek' forearm, and was heavy enough that when Stiles took it and Derek let go, it clunked to the ground.

His friend got up, and then everyone stood up, too. He walked over to the side of the tombstone and with a decisive grunt, pushed the spade-end of the shovel into the earth there, turning it over beside the grave. It was quick work. Derek took over the digging - they had to dig a narrow hole deep enough to account for the plant's roots - but it wasn't long before Stiles deemed the hole deep enough, and then he and Scott together brought the fragile plant out of the bag, clumping dirt around it, and placed it into its resting place.

Whatever Stiles had dug up out of the garden was a hearty-looking thing. A little thorny and very green, with thick leaves and a single flower. Scott had no clue what it was, but he supposed it was pretty. His knowledge of botany pretty much extended to being able to tell what was a flower and what was a tree.

Then, everyone worked together in the quiet to fill the little hole back up and press the dirt around it nearly flat again, until it looked like it could have grown there, save for the lack of grass. Laura opened the water bottle and drizzled some over the plant, christening it.

Once they were done they stood around it, watching the plant like it would suddenly sprout into a towering thing, but then Stiles said, "So she can have her garden again," and then he burst into tears.

He hung his head, crying into his hands. Scott stepped forward, hand reaching out already to steady Stiles, but then there was Derek, and there was Laura, and then he was tangled up in all their limbs as they formed what could only be a human pretzel, everyone trying to get their arms around each other and almost succeeding. 

Scott thought maybe this would be it; maybe this was Stiles' plan to keep the Hales here, to show them how much he didn't want them to leave. Stiles was rubbing his face into Laura's belly, and Laura was sniffling a little, too. "You're so amazing," he was saying to Laura. "I bet Ian loved you so much. I know you're still sad, but sometimes when we hang out you make me feel like I could do anything."

"Stiles--" Laura started, promptly cutting herself off when nothing else would come out. She looked down at her hands where they were wrapped around the younger boy. Her lips turned into a pretty, shy smile, and then it grew bright, all the while fighting through the slow trickle of tears. Next to her, Derek looped his arm around her shoulder and hugged her to him, and she didn't even swat him away.

"And you," Stiles continued, pointing at Derek. "Underneath all that grumpiness and leather, you're secretly just as cool as your sister, you know that?"

Derek raised his eyebrows, his eyes wide, like he was stunned, but then his lips curved into a pleased grin. Even he couldn't resist such deliberate and direct praise.

"And then Scott." Stiles turned his amber eyes onto him, and Scott met him the best he could. He knew how Stiles felt about him; he knew how he felt about Stiles. He would bike all the way across the country to New York City to put flowers on a grave if Stiles asked him to, and if he was with him. They had been through a lot together, and could only go through a lot more. 

Stiles didn't say anything at all. He tilted the corners of his lips up at Scott and nodded, and Scott nodded back. 

"Anyway," Stiles said into the silence, with difficulty, burying his face again into Laura. If he were just a little older, Laura might have been a little more wary about how he was holding her. He tried again: "Anyway, I wanted to say thank you to you guys because you've literally made my life better. Like without you I don't know what would have happened. And I'm glad I've met you. And I'm going to miss you, Derek and Laura. And, Scott, if you ever leave me alone in Beacon Hills I won't revoke our friendship but I'll be really, really mad, so please don't do that."

"I wouldn't ever," Scott promised him, sincerely.

Derek mumbled something that got carried off in the wind.

"What was that?" Laura prompted.

Derek said it again, louder. "I said, you made it better for us, too."

Stiles latched himself onto Derek's middle and Derek stiffened immediately, but Scott could see the gradual and conscious release of tension from his muscles, and then finally Derek was curved over his friend, in the best approximation of a hug he could give.

"I'm going to miss you," Stiles said again, quiet and private.

Scott let go. The Hales crowded him a little more as Scott took a step back, and then another. It was okay. Stiles was always going to be his best friend, his brother, and he wasn't jealous or anything. Stiles needed this, needed  _them_ , and Scott was a big enough friend for that not to bother him.

There was a crunch of something underfoot to the side which drew his attention. His gaze shifted to the person there, near them but not too near. It was the caretaker's son. Scott thought his name was Ivan, or something.

The boy pointed at the plant next to Stiles' Mom grave marker. "You're not supposed to plant things," he said in a quiet voice. It shivered a little at both ends, like he was afraid of how it sounded.

"Please don't dig it up," Scott said. "At least for a little bit. It means a lot to my friend."

The other boy frowned. He pointed a finger to himself. " _I'm_  not going to dig it up. My dad might, if he sees it, but maybe..." He trailed off, frowning some more.

He turned and scampered off. Scott noticed he had a strange gait in his run, like he was favoring one foot. He disappeared behind a squat and small building and re-emerged moments later, cupping something in his hands. Whatever it was, it was green, and smelled like the forest.

He came back to Scott and held it out for him to see.

"What's that for?"

"I'll show you." He walked over to the plant and began placing clumps of the moss he had in his hands around the base of it, artfully, so that when he stepped back, it looked like none of the dirt had recently been turned. "When it rains, it will make it even better. Then it will look like it's always been there, and my dad won't dig it up," he said, turning back to Scott.

Scott beamed at him. The boy smiled back, small and timid.

"You're in our class, aren't you? Do you know us? I'm Scott. That's Stiles." Scott pointed Stiles. He and Derek and Laura were laughing about something now. Something insular. Scott caught the word  _spraypaint_. 

"Yeah," the boy said, confusion coloring his tone. "I'm, uh, Isaac."

Scott held out his hand to shake. Isaac flinched quickly, but then he gingerly took Scott's hand to shake, too.

"You seem cool," Scott announced.

This caused Isaac to flush. "I'm not," he said immediately.

"Oh," Scott said. "That's okay. We're not that cool, either." He gestured between himself and Stiles. Then they stood there with the silence between them, the noises from the conversation happening just a few feet from them like it was coming through a filter.

Isaac startled. "I have to get back," he said suddenly. "It was nice to meet you."

"You, too!" Scott remembered to call out to Isaac's back.

The caretaker came back out again as they were leaving, scowling at them, but Scott took one look at Stiles' mother's grave and thought that the plant was beautiful, and that it looked like it belonged there, too. Isaac wasn't there next to his father like earlier, and Scott found that he hoped to see him again.

"Promise me you'll call," Stiles ordered from the back seat.

"We promise," Derek and Laura chorused.

"And visit," he added.

"Of course."

"Will you miss me?"

Laura looked up into the rearview mirror, and for a second she made eye contact with Scott, who was looking, too. Then she focused on Stiles. "Honey, we are going to miss you with all our hearts."

Stiles smiled. Even though they were too old for it, he held onto Scott's hand the entire car ride home.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking around to the end! I'm sorry that I don't update as frequently as I should when I post, so thank you for your patience. Hope you enjoyed :)

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on tumblr: [fan](http://andnowforyaya.tumblr.com) and [personal](http://paperkrane.tumblr.com).


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